Razorblades
by Annie Sewell-Jennings
Summary: Buffy has a secret.


RAZORBLADES (1/1)  
BY: Annie Sewell-Jennings (auralissa@aol.com)  
  
DISCLAIMER: The character of Buffy Summers belongs to Joss Whedon   
and Mutant Enemy Productions, and to the evil bastards of   
Twentieth Century FOX. The song belongs to the divine Aimee Mann,   
and is from the "Magnolia" soundtrack.  
  
SUMMARY: Buffy has a secret.  
  
CATEGORY: Angel/Buffy. WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH.  
  
RATED: R for disturbing imagery  
  
SPOILERS: This is set directly after the "Graduation Day"   
episodes.  
  
ARCHIVAL: Please request permission first  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know that this is a very dark piece, but I   
wanted to write it nonetheless, as I was in a dark mood when I   
thought of it, but not dark enough to actually do what I describe   
in the story. Don't worry about Annie. ;-) I also want to warn   
people that this piece is extremely dark, and is disturbing. It   
describes a real problem in society and it delves into the darker   
psychology of "Buffy". I just want to warn you right now that   
this is unusual and black.  
  
Thanks to Heather for editing and providing beta reader services,   
as well as providing friendship. :)   
  
*****  
  
RAZORBLADES  
  
*****  
  
"Prepare a list of what you need  
Before you sign away the deed  
But it's not going to stop  
It's not going to stop  
'Til you wise up  
No, it's not going to stop  
So just give up"  
--Aimee Mann, "Wise Up"  
  
*****  
  
Warm beads of moisture rained down from the showerhead, clinging   
despairingly to the walls of the shower, trying to hang on to the   
slicked sides for life, before eventually falling, plummeting   
down the sides, dissipating into nothingness. Droplets of water   
fell as steam rose, its breath curling like cigarette smoke   
around the small bathroom, filling the room with a cloistering   
humidity that threatened to suffocate. It was deafening, choking,   
disturbing and horrid, and yet she swallowed it whole and made   
the water warmer.  
  
Small baubles of water careened down the slender, too thin lines   
of her body, running down between the valley of her breasts,   
hiding in the indent of her navel, and losing themselves forever   
in the inviting shadow between her legs. Damp, thin wisps of   
honeyed gold fell in her eyes, turned ashen in the water, and she   
closed her eyes, standing still under the showerhead, her back   
turned so that the brutal force of the steaming water hit her   
back and turned her skin red.  
  
She needed to be clean. She needed to be resolved. She needed   
redemption, resurrection, forgiveness and absolution, all of the   
things that a priest could offer her but God couldn't deliver.  
  
But most of all, she needed the pain.  
  
Her scars were well-concealed, nothing more than fine branches of   
white along the toned but thinning muscles of her abdomen,   
running down to her upper thighs, where no one would ever see   
them. She would not ever have a lover who would gaze upon her   
body and notice the network of scarring that was beginning to   
paint her body, nor would they ever notice the fresher wounds,   
the ones that still bled sometimes underneath her clothing during   
school. Sliding her shaking fingers over the scabs of her most   
recent lacerations, she traced their history from her navel to   
her hip, this one deeper than the last. Practicing, maybe. She   
perhaps had been rehearsing.  
  
But Buffy thought that she cut herself just to feel pain that she   
could control.  
  
There was no real reason for her to stay in the shower, not after   
she had been physically cleansed. But she remained there   
underneath the constant assault of water, her body pale and her   
eyes weary. Ash and soot had turned the waters a filthy shade of   
black, but the waters had run clear eventually as the mark of the   
fires washed away. But it was only the fire that she was able to   
dispense of - everything else was still there inside of her. She   
was still who she was, ice sculpted into a girl, and a girl who   
had just killed the only person who might have understood her.  
  
Faith.  
  
The murder had scared Buffy. It had frightened her because of all   
that Buffy could have become. The anger, the rage, the pain and   
the loss of control... She could have ended up just as Faith was,   
a screaming banshee of anguish intent on destroying the world as   
she herself fell to pieces. But Buffy had found a different   
method of destruction - all resting in a pair of razorblades and   
the canvas of her skin.  
  
Water pooled around her ankles as the hot water began to add up,   
and Buffy stretched her left arm in front of herself, turning it   
over to look at the soft expanse of skin on the inside of her   
arm. There was the first cut, a soft, fading pink, worn away by   
the months that had passed between the first cut and her last   
ones. It had been after Spike had returned and made her face all   
that she didn't want to see - the fact that no matter how hard   
she pretended, how firmly she tried, she would never be able to   
fall out of love with Angel.  
  
Angel...  
  
The first cut had been for him. She had taken the sharpened   
razorblades and selected the softest piece of herself, intending   
to commit suicide and end her life. The thought of being with him   
but without him, of always seeing the rich lushness of his mouth   
but being unable to kiss it whenever she pleased, and of being in   
love with him and incapable to love him as she wanted, was   
torture. It had been better when she had thought him dead. At   
least then she had a chance - a chance to recover.  
  
This was an unending disease.  
  
Buffy had tried to mask her feelings, even from herself. She had   
tried to tell herself that she was just a friend of his, nothing   
more and nothing less, but it had been Spike's brutal honesty   
that had proven her wrong. They would always been in love with   
each other, and there was nothing that would ever stop that. She   
was powerless against the destiny of her loving Angel. She   
couldn't fight the love that she felt for him or the excruciating   
pain that such a love caused.  
  
But she could control the pain that she made herself feel.  
  
The razorblade had cut into her flesh with a stinging ecstasy,   
like acid had been poured into her veins, and she had gasped at   
the tears that sprung unbidden to her eyes as she watched the   
blood ooze out from the opened wound. This was who she was,   
pouring out from the cut, running down her arm like sluggish wine   
and liquefied rubies. This was the essence of the Slayer. This   
was Buffy Anne Summers. The girl who spilled whenever she was   
hurt wept when she felt sad. It had been such a tiny cut, minute   
even, but God, the pain felt so good to her numbed body. She   
welcomed it, embraced it, because this was no pain caused by fate   
or destiny. It was pain that she controlled. Pain that she   
initiated.  
  
So she slid the razorblade another inch and just let it sear.  
  
The months had gone by since then, and Buffy had learned how to   
control the cutting. She learned to cut the parts of her that no   
one else could see, like her breasts, or her abdomen, or her   
inner thighs. These were the places that Angel couldn't have, and   
the places that she couldn't give him. She cut herself when Angel   
attempted suicide, when she had lost her powers and herself   
and Giles had been fired, and she cut herself when Faith killed   
her first man. She cut herself when Angel pretended to lose his   
soul, and she had a network of scars on the small of her back   
from when she had been bombarded by thoughts.  
  
And she had cut herself on the night he told her he didn't want   
her.  
  
It was then that she realized that the cuts weren't for him; they   
were for her. They were her punishment, not denial of the fates   
or rebellion against destiny. They were her penalties for her own   
wrongs and shortcomings. And it was also then when she realized   
that she couldn't stop cutting herself, that she needed the pain   
to survive, and then that she had stopped feeling anything at all   
when she dragged the razorblade across her skin.  
  
She wondered what she would feel tonight, since Angel had gone.  
  
Water pooled around her calves, nearly to the rim of the bathtub,   
and that was when Buffy turned off the showerhead and stepped out   
of the tub. She stood there, naked, dripping water onto the floor   
as her body glistened with water. Mist fogged up the mirror, and   
she wiped it away with a towel, forcing herself to look at who   
she had become.  
  
She saw a girl thinner than she let herself believe, her arms and   
legs beautiful and flawless, but her torso, breasts, and upper   
thighs were hideously disfigured from the cuts that she had given   
herself. She was scarred, her beauty torn away from her own hands   
when she was unclothed and stripped naked, revealed whole rather   
than in pieces. Damp gold hair streamed down her back, the color   
of dusted honey, and she saw eyes that held nothing inside of   
them but weariness.  
  
Buffy was so tired of being numb.  
  
Stress and fear had consumed her for the last months since   
Angel's return, and all that she had felt was terror at the   
notion that he would leave her again. She loved him with an all-  
consuming passion, something that tore her up from the inside   
out, and she hated the fact that she could love him so   
desperately even when she tried not to. When he had told her that   
he was leaving, and when he had nearly died in her arms only a   
night ago, parts of her had died, too, realizing the fragility of   
life and the fleeting moments of an eternal love.  
  
And so these last cuts would be for him.  
  
Slowly, Buffy opened the medicine cabinet, and procured a small   
wooden box carved with oleander where she kept small jewelry or   
lotions. Scattered gemstones and small samples of wisteria-  
scented lotion and bath beads of a dozen different colors were   
carelessly emptied into the sink, and Buffy pulled up the edge of   
the torn velvet.  
  
And the razorblades gleamed in anticipation.  
  
These were her confidants, her masters and slaves all at once,   
and she lifted them silently, a thousand words written in the way   
that they caught the artificial life and fogged from the steam.   
Quietly, she rinsed them under the sink, seeing specks of her own   
blood crusting the blades from last time run down the drain and   
away from her eyes. Once they were cleaned, Buffy looked in the   
mirror, and tried to see herself there.  
  
All she saw was scar tissue.  
  
Water fell from the side of the nearly full tub as she stepped   
back into it, sloshing over the sides and onto the tiled floor of   
her bathroom. Buffy disregarded it as she sank into the hot   
water, her naked body covered by the intensity of the heat but   
not noticing its temperature. All this time, she had been cutting   
in the places where no one would see, where Angel would never   
look upon, and where no other man ever would either. Now she   
would make the final incisions, because he was gone, and his   
existence was all that had really kept her alive anyway. Not for   
her sake, but for his - because he had seen enough misery in his   
lifetime anyway. He shouldn't have to see hers.  
  
Buffy paused for a moment, closing her eyes and thinking of the   
years that had passed. She remembered sunlight and the smell of   
lemon balm, when Willow and Xander had smiled and laughed with   
her, and when she had been blissfully unaware of Angel and the   
demon within him. She remembered being killed by the Master and   
of the insanity that she had felt. She remembered a fateful night   
spent in Angel's embrace and wished that she could erase the   
memories of what had transpired after that. The memory of Giles'   
face and the love that she had felt for him, of her mother and   
her lost father, of Oz and Cordelia, and of killing Angel... She   
remembered all of these things.  
  
And she remembered who she had once been. She had once been   
strong and willing, courageous and in-control, anguished and yet   
comforted, and she had once known she was. But all of that had   
changed when her love began haunting her instead of healing her,   
and when her life had been propelled by misery instead of by joy.   
Now she saw herself for what she was - a network of scars.  
  
The razorblade cut into the thick vein along her submerged wrist,   
slowly and luxuriously opening the vein and spilling blood into   
the water. The waters would soon run crimson with her blood, and   
she would be consumed in all that had kept Angel alive. It   
wouldn't take as long, maybe; she had lost so much blood already.   
She then took the blade and slit her other wrist, watching the   
blood pour into the clear liquid, and then sighed, placing the   
razorblades on the edge of the bathtub.  
  
She hadn't left a note, and her mother wouldn't return home for   
another day. By the time they found her, there would be no chance   
of saving her. But that opportunity had probably died months ago   
anyway, draining out of her with each droplet of blood, just like   
now.  
  
Unconsciousness beckoned, and Buffy sighed, sinking into the   
waters, her vision blocking as she let herself fall into the   
comforting cradle of bleeding to death. But it was of her will,   
of her choice, not of anyone else's, no matter how badly she had   
needed to cut herself or how much she loved Angel. It was her   
freedom.  
  
Her last conscious thought as she sank into slumber was the   
singular regret that killing herself hadn't even hurt.  
  
*****  
  
(end)  
  
*****  
  
I warned you it was dark. Cutting is a real problem and disorder   
among teenaged girls, and I tried my best to flesh it out with   
Buffy's character. This was the only time where I could see Buffy   
cutting herself, as she was so numb and distanced from everyone   
in Season Three, what with her horrible ordeal with Angel and   
Faith.  
  
All feedback on this piece would be very appreciated at   
Auralissa@aol.com, and I will reply to any e-mail that I get.   
:)  



End file.
